The Prey

by Tony Park

  ‘Come,’ Luis said. ‘You cannot make it to the main shaft. Wellington has many armed men. There is another way.’

  Luis got up and edged along the side wall of the tunnel. If these whites were too stupid to not follow him, then that was their problem.

  ‘Wait for us, we’re coming,’ the woman said in the darkness. Luis had no idea what she was doing down here, holding a rifle. She was crazy, or perhaps brave. He had heard the exchange between the man and the woman. Like lovers fighting, he thought.

  ‘There is another side passage up ahead,’ he said to them. ‘Stay close to me. No lamps.’

  ‘I thought you said all the armed men had gone looking for us,’ the man, McMurtrie, said.

  ‘They are the armed men. There are more than two hundred zama zamas down here. Men have scattered everywhere, but most of us carry a knife or weapon of some sort. You are among thieves, Senhor McMurtrie.’

  ‘Two hundred? Jeez,’ the woman said.

  ‘Shush,’ Luis hissed.

  He led them through a maze of side tunnels and stopes. As Luis had run from the firing and noise, he’d caught sight of Wellington leaving his office, a daypack on his back. Their so-called fearless leader was abandoning his men. Like all bullies, he was a coward. Luis knew Wellington would be heading for the emergency exit from the disused mine whose old workings occasionally intersected Eureka’s madala sides. The exit route, which Wellington used whenever he was smuggling gold out, was made up of nearly a kilometre of stairs, laid into the rock of a steeply inclined shaft. Luis was now aiming for the same way out; he just prayed Wellington would not be around one of the corners waiting for them. In truth, he didn’t know for sure if the exit had been left unguarded, but the GR people had an AK, a shotgun and a pistol – they represented Luis’s best chance of escape.

  Luis heard voices behind them. ‘Hurry. The others will guess where we are going.’

  ‘Where is that, exactly?’

  ‘This tunnel leads to an incline shaft in the disused mine next to Eureka. There was once a chairlift there to carry workers.’

  ‘There may be a man still guarding the door to the shaft.’

  ‘Shit,’ McMurtrie said. He came to Luis and tugged his sleeve. ‘Wait, take this.’

  McMurtrie pressed a pistol into his hand. It was the first time since the end of the civil war in Mozambique that he had held a weapon. He tried to hand it back.

  ‘No. Take it. You’re going to be able to get closer to a guard than any of us.’

  ‘And if I kill a man my crimes will be much worse when you hand me over to the police, above ground.’ He suddenly resented these people and their kind, who had sacrificed his career and years of hard work for the sake of ethnic tokenism and union intimidation.

  ‘You’re helping us escape. It won’t be forgotten,’ McMurtrie said. ‘I give you my word,’ he added in Portuguese.

  Luis sighed but hurried on, slipping the pistol into the imitation leather bumbag he wore around his waist and zipping it closed. He didn’t have much choice.

  *

  Wellington was almost out of breath from running by the time he reached the emergency exit. He tried to slow his breathing for the ordeal that lay ahead, climbing the interminable flights of stairs that followed the track of the disused chairlift, up the inclined shaft. He made the tortuous journey once a month and each time it seemed more difficult.

  Jonas, the sentry, lowered his AK-47 when he saw who it was. ‘What’s happening, boss?’

  ‘Nothing. It was only one man. He came to rescue the murungu, Loubser. A fool. My cubs will have dealt with him by now, but some of the men will be alarmed. Shoot anyone who tries to escape, Jonas.’

  The man smiled. Jonas, a fellow Shona, was wanted for murder above ground. He could never surface and Wellington kept him happy with dagga and the occasional whore. He had killed on Wellington’s orders three times in the past to maintain discipline underground. ‘Yes, boss. Are you coming back?’

  Wellington clapped him on the arm. ‘Of course, shamwari, and I will bring you a present. One with a nice round bottom.’

  *

  ‘Luis,’ Cameron called softly to the panting Mozambican, ‘where do you keep your explosives?’

  ‘Just a little further on from here. There is another disused refuge chamber.’

  ‘Cameron, the guys down here are crazy,’ Chris said. ‘They mine the safety pillars. If you let off a big bang you could cause a major rockfall. You heard what Luis said – there are more than two hundred people down here.’

  Cameron was annoyed with Chris’s whining tone. He seemed to forget the band of men following them was out to kill them, although they had been told to take Chris alive. Cameron had reverted to his military persona. Achieving their mission – in this case escaping alive – was all that mattered.

  ‘Just keep moving, you two,’ Kylie said from ahead.

  He had to give it to her, she was gutsy, coming after him, even if she had screwed up by bringing Gideon with her. Cameron thought of Jessica and wished he had told her he loved her the last time he’d seen her. She would be home from school now, making herself tea.

  Cameron still had his night-vision goggles on and he saw through the open door of the refuge room stacks of sticks of cartridged explosives, probably stolen from the stope faces of his mine when the zama zamas rushed in at the end of a shift and cut the igniter cords before they could reach the fuses.

  ‘Carry on,’ he said to Chris and Kylie. ‘I won’t be far behind.’

  ‘Cameron …’ Chris began.

  ‘He knows what he’s doing,’ Kylie said. ‘Stay close to me, Chris.’

  She had, Cameron thought, an incredible knack of in turn pissing him off and pleasantly surprising him.

  Cameron worked quickly. He didn’t know how far behind them the zama zama gunmen were. Some or all of them would know the shortcut and would guess where they were heading. Despite Chris’s concerns, a rockfall was exactly what Cameron wanted to create, between the exit and the men chasing them. With any luck he would not only stop the gunmen, but also block this rat run for good.

  Cameron gathered half-a-dozen sticks, each about thirty centimetres long, and bound them together with some duct tape he found lying on the ground. From a roll of igniter cord he unwound about fifty centimetres, cut it and wired it to the fuse of one of the sticks. In his mind he double-checked his rough calculation: igniter cord burned at two metres per minute, so fifty centimetres would give him about fifteen seconds before detonation.

  When he was finished he switched his night-vision goggles to infra-red and ran along the tunnel, cradling the explosives, and caught up with the others. He came first to Chris and Kylie, crouching and pressed against the rock wall. He laid his hand gently on Kylie’s shoulder and she jolted. He pressed his lips to her ear. ‘What’s happening?’ He could smell her shampoo and her perspiration.

  She moved her head so she could reply. ‘Luis is ahead, talking to the guard.’

  ‘Jonas, please, my friend. As I just said, Wellington asked me to bring this gold.’ The figures were indistinct at this range, but Cameron could see that Luis, dwarfed by the muscled sentry, was holding up what looked like a bumbag, its belt hanging loose. ‘I can show you.’

  The guard took half a step back and raised the rifle. ‘Wellington said to shoot anyone who tried to get out. He mentioned nothing about you or more gold.’

  ‘He forgot, my friend. This is the last batch I produced. He told me before the shooting began to bring it to him as soon as I was done. Do you want to be the one who tells him, when he returns, that you stopped me from saving his gold? This raid will slow production for some time while the boss relocates us to other madala sides. Every gram of gold counts now.’

  There was a moment of tense silence.

  ‘Here, let me show you.’

  ‘Toss it to me. Keep your hands in sight,’ the guard barked.

  A voice called from down the tunnel behind them. ‘Jonas! I
t is us, the lion cubs. We are coming. The whites are heading your way.’

  Luis began to pull the pistol out.

  Cameron took a cigarette lighter out of his pocket and lit the ignition cord attached to the sticks of explosive, then tossed the bundle as far as he could down the tunnel in the direction from which they had just come.

  Cameron grabbed the AK-47 from Kylie, raised it to his shoulder and took aim, but he was a fraction too late. Jonas fired and Luis was knocked backwards. ‘Down everyone!’ Cameron yelled.

  The guard loosed a burst towards him but Cameron kept his cool and took his time. He fired twice and both bullets caught Jonas in the chest. The next instant Cameron was pitched face forward, skinning his hands and knees on the floor as the tunnel behind them erupted in a storm of fire, rock and dust from the explosion he had just triggered.

  As he dragged himself to his feet, Cameron’s ears were ringing, and when he wiped his face he saw blood was coming from his nose. He went to Kylie, knelt, switched on her headlamp and then helped her up. ‘Are you OK?’

  Her reply was barely audible but she coughed and gave him a thumbs-up. They made their way over to Chris as around them the rock protested, creaking and groaning. Cameron, still holding the AK at the ready, looked back to the site of the explosion as rugby ball-sized lumps of rock started dropping from the roof of the tunnel. ‘Run,’ he said to the others. ‘It’s about to go. Wellington’s men are on the other side of a cave-in.’

  ‘We just leave them to die?’ Chris asked.

  Cameron shook his head. ‘We’ll send mine rescue down later, once it’s stabilised.’

  Kylie was already ahead of them, kneeling beside Luis.

  ‘Where’s he hit?’

  ‘Midriff. I think it’s his side.’ Her hand came away wet as Cameron joined her.

  ‘Luis, can you hear me?’

  The man blinked, then nodded. Cameron took his knife from its scabbard and cut away one of the sleeves from Luis’s overall top. He balled the material and pressed it against the wound then placed Luis’s hand over it. He hoped it had missed his stomach. ‘Keep pressure on this. Do you understand?’

  Luis nodded.

  ‘What are we going to do with him?’

  Cameron clenched his jaw.

  ‘Cameron, he saved our lives. He took a bullet for us,’ Kylie said.

  Cameron knew the smartest thing would be to leave Luis here. The man was a criminal, but Kylie was right. Cameron was torn between the need to get Kylie and Chris above ground as quickly as possible, helping Luis, and trying to catch up with Wellington. But he had given the man his word.

  ‘I’ll carry him,’ Chris said.

  ‘I can help,’ Kylie added.

  ‘It’s more than a thousand metres up. Climbing all the way,’ Cameron said.

  ‘I’m the youngest, and the fittest,’ Chris said.

  It was a statement, not a boast. Cameron gave the AK-47 back to Kylie. Chris was already on one knee in front of Luis, lifting him in a fireman’s carry. The African groaned with pain.

  ‘I’ll go ahead,’ Cameron said.

  *

  Wellington heard the gunshots below, then felt the thump of the shockwave and the rush of hot air and dust wash over him as the explosion sought an outlet. He forced his aching legs to carry on, one step after another.

  He was wheezing and sweat drenched his clothes. It was never an easy climb, but he usually had the luxury of taking a few breaks on the way up at the regularly spaced landings where workers had once hopped on and off the old chairlift to access the different levels of the mine. He could hear voices, indistinct and unfamiliar, after the explosion had died down. Wellington pushed himself upwards, and tried to ignore the pain in his calves and his shortness of breath.

  *

  Cameron paused. He knew Kylie and Chris would be making slow progress below him. He wondered if Luis would survive the climb. He cocked his head and listened again. There it was, the soft echoes of movement above.

  Wellington.

  He unslung his shotgun and held it at the ready. If he could cut the head off this leech that fed off Eureka’s honest earnings he could leave the mine and the company in a better position. Perhaps Jan would even reconsider keeping him in charge of the mine to finish mopping up the zama zamas. Of course, Jan might still decide to fire him for going against his orders.

  Cameron started climbing again, faster than before. He would catch this bastard. He forced his body towards the light he still couldn’t see but knew was at the top of the climb.

  At the next landing, Cameron savoured a few moments of the comparative bliss of walking on a level surface for about thirty metres before the shaft rose again.

  He was breathing hard as he reached the end of the platform. He heard then saw a rock bouncing down the steps. Cameron raised the shotgun to his shoulder and fired up the shaft, into the darkness.

  ‘Cameron?’ he heard Kylie call from far below. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Wait where you are.’

  Cameron leaned into the shaft and saw a figure moving. The man turned and fired two shots which glanced off the rock a metre from him. Not a bad shot, Cameron thought, given the man was shooting into blackness. He probably knew the shaft well and had guessed where Cameron had paused.

  ‘Stop, Wellington. We knew about this shaft. The police are waiting for you at the top,’ Cameron called in the darkness.

  Wellington laughed at his bluff and Cameron heard his footsteps on the rock stairs.

  ‘Cameron, let him go!’ Kylie called from the depths. ‘Luis is getting worse. We’ve got to keep moving.’

  His quarry would have heard the woman. Cameron paused and listened to Wellington’s exertions. The man knew he was almost home free. Cameron could smell the change in the air. The sweet smell of above ground was filtering down, no doubt fuelling Wellington’s escape efforts.

  Cameron heard Kylie and Chris start climbing again. From the sounds coming from below they weren’t as far behind him as he’d thought. Chris had snapped out of the daze he’d been in when Cameron had first found him and was now putting his youth and strength to good use.

  ‘Be a man, McMurtrie,’ called a voice from above.

  Cameron’s hand closed tighter around the grip of his shotgun. The bastard was taunting him.

  ‘I’ll be back, you know.’

  Cameron knew Wellington was probably correct. He had rescued Chris and killed a few zama zamas, but he hadn’t had time to destroy any of Wellington’s gear or processing plants, and there could still be more than a hundred illegals unaccounted for, scuttling away like rats into more disused workings. Cameron would move to his office job and Wellington would return to what he’d always been, the mine boss.

  Cameron also knew he should stay put and wait for the others. Instead, he started to climb again.

  *

  Wellington paused at the next chairlift landing, shrugged off his daypack and unzipped it. He was one more flight of steps from the entrance to the disused mine. There was still a risk that McMurtrie and the others would emerge from the escape shaft in time to catch him fleeing across the open ground and old mine dumps. It was a long way to the fence and the gold in the pack was heavy.

  McMurtrie probably had a cellphone or radio and would call security or the police to intercept Wellington before he could exit through his concealed cutting in the old mine’s security fence. Wellington needed to ensure there would be no pursuit and the best way to do that was to kill McMurtrie.

  But he couldn’t risk getting into a gunfight with McMurtrie, as Loubser had let on that McMurtrie was an ex-recce commando. Loubser had also told him, during one of their many conversations, that McMurtrie’s wife had run off with another man, to America. ‘I’ll go see your wife for you if you like,’ he called down below. Wellington smiled to himself when he heard the other man’s grunted exertions.

  Wellington lay on the edge of the parapet overlooking the steps below him and waited for McMur
trie to appear. He couldn’t see him, but he would hear him. From the glimpse he’d had of McMurtrie earlier, it looked like he was wearing night-vision goggles. A handy device, Wellington thought, and he would have to invest in a pair for himself before returning to take over Eureka again.

  He heard McMurtrie’s breathing and his footsteps slowing as he prepared to move to the next level. Wellington picked up the hand grenade he had taken from his pack and pulled the pin. He let the lever fly off the side of the orb.

  *

  Cameron heard the metallic clang of something hitting the side wall of the escape tunnel and looked up. He caught a brief glimpse of Wellington’s face, but was preoccupied by what he saw falling from the man’s outstretched hand as he disappeared from view.

  ‘Grenade!’

  Cameron reached for it as it bounced from the floor of the shaft onto the concrete landing in front of him. He watched, momentarily transfixed in horror, as it rolled past him along the platform.

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘What is it?’ Kylie called up from below.

  She must not have heard him. ‘Hand grenade! Get back!’

  Kylie’s head and torso came into view as the grenade slowed to a stop two metres from her. Chris’s face appeared, contorted with the labour of carrying Luis. Cameron rushed along the landing and pushed Kylie in the chest with the palm of his hand, knocking her backwards into Chris, who cried out in surprise as they tumbled back down the last few stairs.

  Cameron dived on top of the grenade.

  PART TWO

  13

  The fisherman preened his feathers in the deep shade of the sycamore fig. He needed the darkness and he needed food for his two young chicks. The voices and the light that searched the trees for him and his family most nights had cost him a meal again the previous evening. He hated the light.

  The sun, too, was his enemy. He nestled deeper into the shadows moving slowly and carefully along the branch as the moving rays began to pick him out. His young slept and his mate blinked her eyes from the nest.